Through Slitted Eyes
by SeductiveCurse
Summary: From the time they were born, Slytherins knew that they only had one purpose: to do their Dark Lord's bidding. Put in charge of a grueling task, Draco and Blaise realize that, in Slytherin, one does not make friends, but alliances. [Discontinued]


**Disclaimer:** Writing the words "I do not own anything related to Harry Potter" probably wouldn't hold up in court. Then again, why a squillionaire like Ms. Rowling would want to sue someone as broke as me is also something that I couldn't fathom. Never the less, I do not own Harry Potter or anything related to it.

My author's note for this chapter will be at the very end because there are many things I would like to say that cannot be said without ruining/referring to the following chapter. Also, this is the first chapter of a story that, as of now, has seven written tentatively in a notebook and no others finalized on a computer. I am very busy with school right now so do not expect any updates anytime soon. I just want to see how people react to this more than anything else right now.

To the best of my knowledge, "_Sum fidelis ut nullus tamen nostrum_" is Latin for "I am loyal only to our cause." Alas, I am not a Latin buff so I apologize for the crudeness of my translation. I do know, however, that "_Scusa_" is Italian for "Excuse me."

I apologize for reposting this chapter, but I noticed a few grammatical and spelling errors as I was skimming it in preparation for typing up chapter two and I didn't want them to go by unnoticed. Mistakes like that can be the mark of an untalented or at least lazy author, no?

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In theory, Voldemort's return should have made life better for the Death Eaters and their Slytherin children. It would, after all, cause a new wave of terror in which no one would be able to trust themselves for fear of the effects of an Imperius Curse, much less anyone else. The dementors, giants and other stereotypical Dark creatures would rise to their master's side. He would be unstoppable, this time, completely.

Many things, in theory, worked out.

In actuality, Death Eaters, or those that had been accused of being one, found life immeasurably harder after their Dark Lord's return. They faced everything from discrimination at work to imprisonment in Azkaban for what seemed to be breathing the wrong way. Those who were unfortunate to have family names that could be even remotely confused with a known agent of the Dark Lord found that the world had turned against them in a matter of days. But still, the Death Eaters held on grimly, afraid to betray their lord for fear of a punishment worse than death and hoping for a single break through that would allow them to return to their rightful places at the top of the world.

They were not loyal to anyone or anything but themselves. They were, however, afraid.

All of them had hoped and prayed that the Prophecy would be the breakthrough that they needed. Instead, it only got several of their own - all very powerful - thrown into Azkaban prison. In return, they discovered that either Voldemort or the Potter boy would end up killing the other, a fact that had at least been assumed by everyone.

It was not much of a consolation.

But still, their Pureblood pride refused to allow them to acknowledge, or perhaps even realize, the time they had wasted and the things they could have done instead. Despite each downfall and sting of defeat by a scrap of a boy, they truly began to believe that they could posses the upper hand at the end of the battle.

Until then, they had to brace themselves and hold on tight. As they had discovered fifteen years ago with the first fall of their lord, nothing was guaranteed.

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Over night it seemed, shelves in Diagon Alley had filled with books, charms and potions that claimed to enable the buyer to protect him or herself from the imposing threat that was Lord Voldemort. Amateurs and trained Aurors alike eagerly bombarded any willing person with information - for a decent price.

Knockturn Alley had been boarded up. Selling anything from within was prohibited, causing the ex-shop owners to open an elaborate black market through which their regular customers could not be denied the purchases and services they so greatly required.

Most important of all was the fact that everything had become a joke over night. The paranoia was enough to cause most of the Pureblooded Slytherins and Death Eaters to snicker out of one corner of their mouth while offering sincere sounding condolences out of the other. It was greatly known that they still found the reaction ridiculous - especially a Mr. Draco Malfoy. And Mr. Draco Malfoy's opinion was always indisputably correct.

Hands in his pockets, he made his way through the crowd, squaring his shoulders to push past the people in his way. Steel grey eyes caught sight of yet another book of self-protection written by yet another budding author. It was a deep purple color with exquisite silver lettering designed to catch the eye spelling out the words, "The Dark Lord is After You: Ways to Survive."

The young man scoffed and made a face of contempt at a small group of people that stood in a cluster, eyes glued to the windows while they discussed why such a book was a very necessary addition to their impressive collection at home.

"You see, Rose, Nathaniel Hellgesen is a descendent of Flavius Belby, the man who discovered how to defeat a Lethifold - or so his autobiography says. That should mean that he knows what he's talking about," the man reasoned, glancing side long at his wife. She bit her lip, as if the book was the last chocolate that she really shouldn't have, but was ridiculously tempting none-the-less.

"How much do you think it costs? Not that you could put a price on our children's safety."

"Wait here, I'll check. Excuse me, young man."

Draco grimaced and bent marvelously backwards to avoid being touched by the man as he pushed past to enter the store. Scowling, the blond walked away, eyes casually scanning the shops for anything that he could possibly want. A few feet away, he felt someone attach to his arm and a feminine voice murmur, "_Scusa_."

Recognizing the voice, he turned and saw a tall girl walking alongside him. Her long, waved hair obscured nearly her entire profile aside from a strong nose and smirking lips.

"Blaise," he acknowledged, unhooking his arm from the Zabini girl's grasp. His hands returned to his pocket, but he did not try to further any conversation.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, glancing at him as they carefully navigated through the masses.

"My mother mentioned that there might be news on the latest broomstick. I came to investigate. What's your excuse?"

She sucked air through her teeth, making a disbelieving sound. "That's a lie."

"It is not," he responded, too quickly and defensively for the words to be true. Draco looked away from her relentless stare, growling, "It's none of your business."

"Dark matters?" Blaise asked, an attractive sort of smirk on her lips. Her walking partner raised a skeptical eyebrow in her direction.

"That, my darling, does not concern you in the least. It is confidential until I see fit to release it," he replied smirking. After Blaise let out a long, slow breath, Draco repeated, "What's your excuse?"

She shrugged a shoulder, blowing a curl away from her eyes. Clearly she was not going to find out what his plans were by pushing the topic. "I had to get out of the house."

"Is something wrong with your horses?" he asked, knowing very well that the Slytherin girl was very fond of the small herd of winged horses that her family owned.

Many times, if he and his family ever found reason to go to the Zabini mansion, Blaise was more likely to be found outside alone than anywhere else. In her words, it gave her time to not have to think or be concerned about anyone else but herself. Draco didn't really care what her excuse was; the jodhpurs she wore when she was riding looked fantastic on her arse.

"No."

Draco smirked knowingly; there was only one other time that she had been seeking refuge from her home. "Your sister is getting married."

A muscle twitched in her temple as she clenched her jaw together, a horribly sour expression on her face. "Yes. And she's even worse than Arrigo was."

"She _is_ a girl."

Blaise stared at him blankly, unable to understand what seemed to either be his stupidity or his twisted sense of humor. "Thank you, Malfoy. I never would have figured out that one on my own."

"What I am saying is she will put up more of a fuss than your brother did three years ago," he explained, lip corners twitching up in amusement. The girl was silent, her mouth drawn back tightly. "Come on, Zabini. It can't be that horrid. What's his name?"

"Kamaal Samir."

He blinked. "That's not English."

"Once again, I never would have figured that one out on my own," she said sarcastically. "You know very well that my family marries across the globe."

"I would have assumed that, since your father and mother both attended Hogwarts, at least one of their children would marry an Englishman or woman."

She fell into an inexplicable silence before saying half to herself, "One was going to."

"What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know; it was arranged before I was born."

The two continued on in silence, not following any particular route, but heading in the direction of Quality Quidditch Supplies, as if Draco's story about looking for a new broomstick was true. A light laugh later, Blaise said, "I don't suppose that the man my parents betrothed me to could be worse than Parkinson."

Draco's expression fell, his nose wrinkling a bit. "Her family does have a great deal of money, but I am not fond of the idea of making bedfellows out of a girl whose face reminds me of a lap dog."

The dark haired girl snickered, eyes glittering in twisted amusement. "You do seem to have the unpleasant end of the bargain."

He curled his lip, his expression of distaste his agreement. Silence fell once more as he weighed the consequences of his next comment. He shook his hair, longer than it had been in the past and cut so that it made his pointed face look a bit rounder and more appealing.

"Would you like to marry me, Blaise?" he asked in the tone he would use if he were asking to borrow a textbook. Sure that there was no way that she could be free from his devilish charm, but wanting to make sure she had the right impression, he quickly added, "Love. Blaise, my love."

She stared at him for a long time, the blank expression that she got when she couldn't believe what someone was saying or doing on her face.

"I would not _like_ to marry you, nor _will_ I marry you," Blaise said at length, her words a solemn vow. "Besides, how would dear Pansy feel if you ran off with another woman?"

Sucking on his front teeth with his tongue, he said thoughtfully, "Not very pleased, I must say. Although the attention I receive from her is wonderful for the ego, it has begun to lose its charm."

Laughing quietly and carefully skirting around a black cat that tried to rub against her legs affectionately as they passed Magical Menageries, Blaise smirked. "Sick of her already? That usually happens after the wedding."

"This union is unique in that case."

It was rare to say that Slytherins smiled for, in actuality, they smirked or sneered more often than not. However, on occasion, something would happen that would either be so strangely amusing or heartwarming that something would twist onto their lips that was neither smile nor smirk, but something in between, something that was bewitchingly captivating in its own way. That was the sort of expression that melted onto Blaise's lips as she nudged Draco with her elbow.

"Alright, Malfoy, I'll admit it if you do," she said. "I am rather happy to see and hear from you again."

"Is that all you wanted to hear?" the blond asked, tilting his head slightly at her. "My darling Blaise, when we are engaged in civil conversation that does not have to do with a threat on either of our parts, I am always happy to see and hear from you; you are one of the few people who can begin compare to me in any regard be it cunning, looks or intelligence."

Well, that was a backward self-compliment if Blaise ever heard one. Anything affirmative that she said would be taken as a compliment on his part, and anything negative, degrading on hers. Knowing the best option was to do nothing, she shook her head slightly and continued on in silence.

Dissatisfied with her lack of comment, Draco drew Blaise confidentially to the side and twitched his eyebrows knowingly. "Admit it. I am devilishly handsome."

Her dark brown eyes, pupils rimmed with green, met his steel grey ones, holding the light of a suppressed secret. All she did was walk on, leaving a confused Draco standing behind her, staring at where she had stood. A second later, he hurried after her and caught her by the arm.

"If I'm not, then who is? Blaise, what are you keeping from me?" he asked. Trying to sound serious, he succeeded in mimicking a father that had caught his daughter with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

"I just don't think you're that attractive," she told him smoothly, tugging her arm free and making it about three steps before he caught her again.

"Then who is?" a bewildered Draco demanded, racking his memory for anyone - anyone - who could be considered more attractive than he.

Needless to say, he was drawing a blank.

"Was," Blaise drawled, a cocky look on her face that showed that she knew that she was in charge of the situation.

"Was," he corrected himself automatically. It actually took him a second to process the word and, when he finally did, he started in surprise. "Was? ... Oh God, please tell me you don't mean Riddle."

Now it was Blaise's turn to jolt. "What? Why him?"

Draco continued on, oblivious to her interruption. His voice was low to prevent any paranoid ears from overhearing. "Of course, if you _did_ fancy the Dark Lord, even if you fancied the person he was before he became part snake, then this could be used to my - our - advantage. Yes, brilliant, you could-"

"Sirius Black."

"-use the charm that must exist some - What?"

"Sirius Black," she repeated, more clearly, as if he hadn't understood her. Her lips upturned in a smirk. "I've seen pictures of him from when he was at Hogwarts and, let me tell you, when he was our age... I wouldn't have minded a bit of inter-House cooperation."

"Blaise!" sputtered Draco in indignation, hardly able to form the sentences he hissed. "He's a House betrayer! He chose the Mudblood-lovers over us!"

"You asked who I thought was attractive, not who my parents would have had me marry," she defended.

Draco growled, narrowing his eyes in her direction. "Inter-House cooperation?"

The Zabini girl merely smiled and twitched her eyebrows suggestively.

"You," Draco accused, pointing a finger at her, "had better be happy that he is not our age now because I would be forced to kill you if I found out about any 'inter-House cooperation'."

She patted his arm reassuring although her words were anything but: "Don't worry. You wouldn't find out."

"Zabini..."

Deciding that her deception had gone on for long enough, she looped her arm through his and began leading him down the Alley once more. "Malfoy, did it ever occur to you that he was related to you?"

"So?" the blond snapped, digging his hands deep into his pockets and scowling at her once more. "Is that your way of insinuating that I as well am a House traitor?"

"Not at all," she purred. Her tone was almost ridiculously soothing. The upbringing she and all the other Slytherins had made changing personalities based on the situation second nature. "All I meant was, you have some of his genes..."

Like a switch had suddenly flipped deep within him, Draco's entire demeanor changed. He turned to face the girl beside him approvingly. "Cunning, Zabini. Very tricky. I'll take this to mean that you believe as well as I that a sideways compliment remains a compliment none-the-less."

"_Those cunning folk_," she quoted.

Taking a hand out of his pocket, he reached over and ruffled her hair under the pretense of being affectionate. Blaise scowled up at him and shook her hair somewhat back into place before releasing his arm and sulking.

Draco couldn't help but grin at her and the way she looked with her hair sticking out at odd angles and a childish pout home on her lips. He opened his mouth, probably to make some sort of snide comment, but a distant clock tolling three cut him off. At the sound, Blaise's scowl grew.

"Everyone thinks I locked myself in my room."

"Are you saying that you need to leave?"

She nodded, her lips curled back in distaste. "I'd better find myself a fireplace. I'll see you on the Express, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco nodded a farewell to her as she wove backward through the crowd, hands cupped around her mouth as she called back, "Buy me something pretty!"

Half a second later, she had completely disappeared from sight.

Malfoy continued through the Alley, deciding that nothing that the stores could possibly have to offer was worth fighting such crowds. He suddenly stopped, a deep frown imbedded in the corners of his mouth. In all honesty, there _was_ somewhere that he was supposed to be and he was already late.

To the left of Quality Quidditch Supplies, there was a small door, nearly always overlooked because of the large stores on either side. Someone who didn't know what it led to would have simply assumed that it was a shop owner's home or something of the like. Draco and select others, however, knew that that wasn't the whole truth.

The boy - no, young man - leaned against this door, his shoulder rubbing up against the uneven grains. He knocked, nothing in code or fancy, just a plain knock.

"Yeah, what?" said a guff voice from the inside.

"I really don't want to have to say this," Draco drawled. "_Sum fidelis ut nullus tamen nostrum_."

The door opened and a particularly nasty looking fellow moved aside to allow the young man to step in. Especially in comparison to the careful grooming and fine clothes that made Draco the Malfoy heir he was, the other man looked even more disheveled, unkempt and unpleasant.

He smiled, revealing blackened teeth as he led Draco further into the house. "They were afraid that you would not show up, master Malfoy, but I assured them all that you would not miss this opportunity to prove yourself."

"It didn't occur to me that I had the choice to not appear," Draco said, careful to not bump into any of the dusty furniture and putting his hands in his pocket to make sure that his shady guide would not attempt to relieve him of any personal belongings.

Wheezing laughter left the man as he opened the door to a room lit only by a rusted candelabrum that was placed on a small table. Once inside, the door was firmly shut and Draco could hear someone placing a silencing charm on the room.

"Master Malfoy," a deep voiced man said, his face nearly completely shadowed aside from the bridge of his nose and his protruding brow. "We are all glad to see that you were able to join us."

"Like I said to the man you had greet me, it didn't occur to me that I had the choice to not appear," he repeated, although his tone was considerably more formal and respectful than it had been earlier. The deep voiced man did not find the humor in the situation.

"We are glad that you didn't attempt it."

Draco paled considerably, although such a thing wasn't noticed due to the lack of color that was naturally in his face and the darkness of the room. He found his thoughts flickering swiftly to why he hadn't brought Crabbe and Goyle along, just in case. Or, if not them, even kept Blaise with him so that there would have been someone that would be able to tell others where to find his dead body.

"Nott, don't threaten the boy," another voice said, this one low as well, but much more feminine in a way that reminded him of Pansy when she was trying to be seductive and Blaise when she was annoyed. "Come, master Malfoy, we are glad to see that you came."

He nodded, stepping forward as a chair was magicked up for him. "I was not given specific information as to why I was to come here."

"That was the way we wanted it," said Nott. "The fewer outsiders that know of our meeting, the better. Is there anything that your mother told you before you arrived or that your father did during any of your visits to Azkaban?"

"He hasn't been taking visitors," Draco responded, a flush coming to his cheeks; it almost seemed like he was on trial. "And my mother only told me that I was wanted here because I am to take my father's place while he is gone."

Nott leaned forward in his chair, his hands folded on the table in front of him. "Mr. Malfoy, you are not only here because of your father being... detained."

"You see," another man continued, his voice fluidly following Nott's, almost as if this had been rehearsed, "aside from a few of the seventh years that have already been Marked, you are one of our only links inside Hogwarts."

"Your name, unlike many of the seventh years, also still commands a sort of respect and power throughout the United Kingdom."

Draco leaned back in his chair. They needed him. A very small smirk crept to his lips, giving him the cocky expression he usually wore. "What do you need me to do?"

"You are this eager to do our bidding?" the woman asked. "I am pleased."

"There is no other way for me to prove myself to our lord nor worthy of the Malfoy title," Draco explained, sounding confident although a dangerous undertone in the woman's voice shook him.

"Our lord and his followers have come to a conclusion at long last," Nott began. "This is what you and any other truly loyal Slytherins must do..."

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**Author's Note:** Yeah, a lot of stuff happened that needs to be explained for the slow and/or anal readers out there unless I want to be skewered on a spit and roasted for their pet zombie.

First of all, I am aware that Ms. Rowling had announced that Blaise Zabini is, in fact, a boy. However, this story is something that I have been working on for the past two years. (It originally was posted a year ago under my old account, Khepri. Go look for yourself if you don't believe me.) We discovered that Blaise is a boy one year ago. I have also been roleplaying as or writing stories involving female Blaise for the past four years. Old habits die hard; I'm not changing my ways.

Secondly, Draco and Blaise are _not_ in a romantic relationship. Yes, they link arms on occasion or call each other "darling", but it's more out of formality or sarcasm than anything else. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it to those who don't understand by now. Think of it like this: Slytherins, in my opinion, were raised very formally and in a rather cold environment. Saying something like "my love" or walking arm in arm really doesn't mean anything. Besides, Draco is engaged to Pansy Parkinson and Blaise to a character that will be mentioned more in later chapters. A "romance" will blossom later in this story, but I will not reveal at this point if it is between Blaise and Draco or other characters. (If any readers want to guess when I start dropping hints, feel free.)

Was there anything else I needed to clarify? I don't think so. I hope everyone understands now and isn't sitting there trying to figure something out. My words of advice are don't hurt yourself. If you don't understand now, the plot only gets more detailed and intricate. Just do us all a favor and stop reading.

However, if you ask nicely, I will gladly clarify what I can without giving out any spoilers. I'm really a nice person once you prove to me that your I.Q. is higher than that of a rock. I'mjust tired of having people (try to) walk all over me, that's all.


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